Quito Chapter 6. Miss Wanda Villain

     Page Two Hundred Thirty.
     Everybody rushed to answer the door when the chimes rang. (It's always fun to answer the door when the bell rings 'cause you always hope it'll be a surprise for you. It's like in the movie The Music Man when all the town's folk are singing about The Wells Fargo Wagon, hoping it'll be bringing something wonderful for each of them.) When Jordan opened the over-sized, creamy white, French style, front doors, they all saw a very attractive and smiling collie. She was darker than TV's Lassie, but very beautiful. She was carrying a small, charming, suede, purple purse; wearing a fetching purple wool felt pillbox hat with a little silk veil covering her eyes and snout; had tasteful but noticeable ruby drop earrings and had multiple ruby bangle bracelets about her front two furry legs.She was also wearing the most extraordinary perfume. She smelled like a giant bouquet of yellow roses.
     "Hello everybody. May I please speak with Quito", she barked while looking around at all the children and Quito. Her bark was graceful and refined.
     "I'm Quito", he arfed in response.
     "Quito, my name is Wanda Villain and  you don't know me but I know you and I'd like to offer you a job. May I please come in and sit down?
     Quito and all the kids looked at each other nervously but with curiosity also. Their expressions to each other were all saying, "what's going on?" But they were polite enough to know that when guests arrive at your door, you always invite them in and offer them food and drink regardless of the circumstances. They all walked Wanda to the parlor, smelling and sniffing her along the way as her perfume really smelled that lovely. Jordan placed a Michael Jackson record on the Victrola and immediately Thriller began playing. They then offered the new doggie some hot, fresh Earl Gray tea which Jackson had just steeped and placed some very thin orange slices into. And to go with the tea and music, there was a plate of toasted, light golden brown crumpets with butter and lemon curd. Wanda clearly loved the crumpets with butter and lemon curd as she delicately gobbled up 7 of them. 
     "Miss Villain, how do you know me?"
     "A little birdie told me about you. Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean for that to sound evasive but you see, I'm acquainted with a family of  Hummingbirds who live outside of my bedroom window and apparently the Tellabirdie Phone System is up and working great. I had know idea that all birds, the entire globe over, are always telling each other all the news of the world. Birds are surprisingly well-informed people and what's more, they have no discretion. They'll tell anybody anything. Actually, they have really big mouths, in spite of the fact that they have really tiny mouths. So a couple of days ago I was talking with Eggbert, that's the father hummingbird, and your name and location happened to come up. You see, I told him that I needed a strong person to appear in my company's commercials and Eggbert told me of your cold-fusion powers. So, I'd like to hire you to be my spokesdog for a new line of extra-sweet and extra-sugary cereals that my company's developing. If I can have somebody like you illustrate how someone can get strong and powerful by eating tons of sugar, then all the kids will buy it and we'll all be rich, rich rich." At that last part, Wanda seemed particularly eager.
     Quito was stunned at first, then he became angry, very angry indeed. His black and white fur actually turned red with fury. He just couldn't believe what he was hearing and he wasn't sure what to be more concerned and upset about, Miss Villain's idea or the fact that all the little birdies in the world knew about his super-powers. He wasn't embarrassed by them or anything, he just didn't think it should be common knowledge. First of all, he virtually never used his powers in the first place, so he had no idea how the birds knew about them. Secondly, he didn't think he'd like the idea of taking the kids to, say, Cedar Point and having some old lady walk up to him and request, "What am I thinking now?" But he also thought that her idea of having him act as a role model for her sugary cereal was gruesome and grotesque.
     "Miss Villain, I think your idea is gruesome and grotesque. And you should be ashamed of yourself for even thinking of such a thing. With your money and power, you have so much opportunity to help kids. Why would you want to hurt them like this? You know that those cereals just make kids fat and yucky. How dare you hurt the world's children."
     "WELL I NEVER!!! WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE INSULTING ME LIKE THAT?" Now Wanda was the one who was miffed. "I came here this morning to offer you a job and now you're insulting me? I don't need or deserve this type of treatment." With that, Miss Villain, got up from the lime green French Provincial style sofa, reached to the authentic, priceless, million dollar, 350 year old, antique, gilded, Louis XIV coffee table which was in front of her, hurriedly wrapped a couple of crumpets with lemon curd in a napkin, put them in her charming, suede, purple purse and walked to the over-sized, creamy white, French style front doors, opened, exited and slammed them in a loud huff.
     The kids and Quito just sat, all their jaws dropping almost to the floor and were speechless. After a moment, William was the first to say anything. "Like, far out, Dudes."
     Then Thomas said, "From the likes of things, I think we shan't anticipate seeing her fury paws again anytime soonish."
     Jackson and Wanda both chimed in with similar thoughts.
     Lastly, Quito barked, "Is that lady off her rocker?" They all talked for a few minutes about how crazy they thought Wanda's idea was. But then they heard some barking coming from outside.
     "You haven't heard the last of me, Quito." Everybody inside the home then rushed to the window just in time to see Wanda get into her 1932 Duesenberg automobile and drive away. 
     "Yup. That lady's nuts", woofed Quito.
Continued next week... Chapter 7. The Fireworks Begin.

Quito. Chapter 3. That's Not All

     Page Two Hundred-Sixteen.
     "What's cold-fusion mean?", arfed Quito after flying around the house and knocking down 2 Lichtenstein painting, 1 Picasso and 1 Tiffany lamp.
     "Cold-fusion mean atomic power which can be created at room temperature. Normally for atomic power to occur, the temperature in the place where it's created has to get to thousands of degrees. But cold-fusion saves a lot of energy 'cause it doesn't have to get so hot", replied Zachary in between sneezes because apparently he either had allergies or a cold. He was, of course, a nuclear physicist so he knew all about that sort of complicated stuff. 
     Quito realized that he'd been gone from little William and Thomas for a long time and figured they'd be awake, roaming around and probably watching their favorite TV show, Dark Shadows, by now. Quito knew that Parents had probably already given them a nice breakfast of Belgian Waffles with local Ohio maple syrup freshly whipped cream and sliced ruby-red strawberries atop. And he was just as curious as you can imagine about how he became a cold-fusion puppy. He figured it was okay if he stayed at the neighbors for just a little while longer to learn more about his new "condition". Also, he needed to  practice walking and lifting things normally again which the 3 brothers assured him he'd be able to do. They'd told him that the reason he broke the toilet was because he simply didn't know his own new strength. But with concentrating on a gentle touch, he wouldn't break things anymore. They also told him that getting wet eliminates all his cold-fusion special powers.
     "So what started this whole thing, anyhow?" barked Quito as he and the gentlemen walked into the recently redecorated breakfast room with it's jade green wooden furniture, soft mint green walls, early-American style hammered copper lighting fixture and bright purple paintings on the walls. The eastern wall of windows were on fire like The Towering Inferno with the morning sun. The ray's warmth felt good on Quito's snout. Everybody sat down and the dog began trying to solve the Rubik's Cube which was sitting on the table.  
     "Well, here's the scoop", said Judd with the sort of voice that made you think he was proud of himself for saying something that somebody else actually wanted to hear. Meanwhile, Nathanael poured everybody tall glasses of freshly squeezed orange-grapefruit juice and served it over ice with sprigs of mint leaves. "That fireball from the sky was from the sun. We all know that the sun is a giant ball of gas which is on fire.Well, more often than you realize, some of that gas breaks away and travels quickly through space, still on fire. As it travels it attracts space dust, little rocks and stuff and gradually becomes a solid chunk. That's what landed next to you yesterday. When it scorched the little spot in your backyard, it made it and anything standing on it radioactive.That radioactivity is what made you super-powered.
     "There's some other things also", interjected Nathanael.
     "Wait!" said Zack and Judd almost in unison and almost in raised voices. "Should he know now?" asked one of them to the others.
     "He's going to find out anyhow. He may as well hear it from us, right up front." Replied Nathanael. Then the men started arguing about whether or not to tell him something. They started calling each other all sorts of names. Dimwit, nimrod, dinkus-brain, stinky-butt, doofus and poopy-pants were just a few that Quito was able to make out. He also heard some actual constructive discussion between the brothers. After a few minutes, Zack and Judd shrugged their shoulders in a "guess you're right" sort of way. "Okay tell em", said somebody.
      By this point, Quito was really curious, as you can assume, about what they were with-holding. As much as he had enjoyed flying all over the house he was also wondering what they were arguing about. (Just so you know, Quito was a very responsible, diligent, conscientious, good humored, likable and curious puppy. He cared about his projects and tried to do them as best as he could. He didn't pretend to know more than he did just to impress people. He knew that everybody had their own side to every story and that's it's important to listen to everybody's version of what happened and get all the facts before making any conclusions. He enjoyed helping others. And there were many other things that made people enjoy being around him. Basically, he was just a great dog. But he was really wondering what else was going on.)
     "Well,  here it is", said Nathanael as he was taking Ghostbusters off the Victrola because it was finished and then putting on Britney Spears' new record . "If you concentrate and think real hard about anybody who's ever lived, real of fiction, like on TV, in books or in movies you can make them come to life for 2 minutes and help you out of any jam you may be in. Also, you have ESP. You can now know what anybody is thinking for 5 minutes after listening to any Henry Mancini music." All 3 men looked at Quito, unsure of what he was thinking (because they didn't have ESP). For his part, Quito wasn't even sure what Quito was thinking. Except one thing he was definitely thinking was "who's Henry Mancini?"
     Continued next week... Chapter 4. How do you know?